New Pathways: A Psychogeography of Lewes

“The streets are repositories of history, walking a way to read that history.”

Rebecca Solnit (“Wanderlust: A History of Walking”)

“…in Paris, in the early 1950’s, the Lettrist group developed the technique of ‘drifting’ [dérive] and ‘psychogeography’. Drifting was free-association in space. Drifters would follow the streets, go down alleys, through doors, over walls, up trees – anywhere they found desirable. Psychogeography was the correlation of the material obtained by drifting. It was used in making ‘emotional maps’ of parts of the city, and in other ways.”

Writers, filmmakers and artists were invited to submit a prose piece of up to 750 words in length, or an audio/visual piece of less than 8 minutes in length, or an audio feature of less than 15 minutes in length. Participants also joined a Drifting/Walking Group (facilitated by the CLHLWR) which met on three separate dates in Lewes during March & April. The group splintered and fanned out into the chosen terrain either in pairs, groups or solo, to collectively deep map varied zones simultaneously. The psychogeographic data of the event (records in audio, video, photography, GPS and text) has been curated to form a ‘mappening’ documenting our collaborative adventure in time and space.